This invention relates to mats, treads and the like used on slippery surfaces such as wet floors to provide slip resistant walking areas, and more specifically to such mats which are securely fastened to such floor by any of a plurality of securement means.
Wet floors, especially wet floors and decks on pleasure boats and the like, provide a hazardous surface for walking. The typical solution to this slipping hazard has been to place a plastic or rubber mat on such walking or stepping surfaces to provide a slip resistant walking surface therefor. These mats usually have any of corrugated, knobby, studded, waffle, or grooved surface configurations which provide projections of the mat material which roll, grip or otherwise deform under the pressure of a person standing or walking thereon to provide a frictional contact with the sole of an individual walking thereon.
A foam backing, waffle backing or studded backing is typically used for these mats. Such backing is intended to reduce the amount of fluid between the mat and the floor or deck and/or to raise the mat surface away from the floor or deck. With studs or waffle surface, the effective surface area of the mat in contact with the wet floor or deck is greatly reduced, causing the pressure force per square inch to greatly increase thereby increasing the friction against the floor or deck.
Even so, when studded slip resistant mats are used, the density of the studs coming in contact with the floor must be quite high or the mat will usually deform when walked on and the lateral surface of the mat will come in contact with the floor greatly reducing the frictional effect of the studs. It has been a problem that such mats, while of a desirable design, move or slip about upon occasion. Moreover, such slip resistant mats are often moved or kicked and moved out of position when an individual trips, kicks against them or otherwise brushes against them.
It would be quite desirable to provide such mats when used on pleasure boats and the like with a molding or trim which adds to their appearance and provides for a functional securement means to the deck. On pleasure boats, however, most trim is metal or wood, especially teak or cedar woods. Slip resistant mats very often are constructed of natural or synthetic rubbers or plastic. An efficient and economic mating of two dissimilar materials such as plastic and wood provides a manufacturing problem and is an economic concern of a manufacturer.
An object of the present invention is to provide a slip resistant mat for use on wet surfaces such as pleasure boat decks having a separate trim portion running the periphery of the mat, this trim portion being utilized to secure the mat to the surface of such deck.
Another object of this invention is to provide such a mat with downwardly projecting studs, these studs supporting the walking surface of the mat above the deck surface and coming in contact with this deck surface.
Another object of this invention is to provide this mat with a wood trim having a mating surface for interlocking with a plurality of the downwardly projecting studs of the mat and for providing a contiguous frame to the walking surface of the mat.
A further object of this invention is to provide such a slip resistant mat with molding whereof the studs are locked to the molding by interlockment among themselves once being passed through a portion of this molding.
An even further object of this invention is to provide a method of assembling the slip resistant mat and trim molding of the invention for interlocking certain of the studs of the mat together to bind the mat with the molding without the need of a direct securement or adherence between the mat to the trim molding.